Wide Body Street car/Time attack build

[Digitalwave]

There's a lot of good info in the Alternative Tuning forum. Def set the base trigger angle with a timing light. Whatever tuning you've done so far will probably be undone if you need to change that number much.

It won't help you much to see other people's VE tables. Yours is going to end up unique as you tune it.

[meltingmanmedia]

There's a lot of good info in the Alternative Tuning forum. Def set the base trigger angle with a timing light. Whatever tuning you've done so far will probably be undone if you need to change that number much.

It won't help you much to see other people's VE tables. Yours is going to end up unique as you tune it.

Sweet. ill dig there in a bit. Yeah for some reason I was under the impression that the base file was closer to what it needs to be than it actually is. It worked enough to move the car around a bit but yeah I'm definitely going to start fresh once I verify timing.
Ive done lots of research in the past few days that clarified a lot of stuff, and now the only thing I want to know or reference is what N/A cars are targeting as far AFR and ignition timing. I'm not trying to squeeze all the power out of it possible but I want it to at least be a good drive if I don't get into turbo stuff until later into this coming summer. I could take it to multiple places around me to have it tuned, but it just doesn't seem cost-effective for a very temporary setup.

[meltingmanmedia]

In honor of the forum days that I did not get the joy of being a part of (because I was a child), I have decided to use the shittiest camera I own to document stuff from now on. Long live the days of trying to learn a thing or two but having to decipher what you're looking at first.

Anyway, My plan for the weekend was to remove the core support and make it removable with some rivnuts and some sheet metal. What actually happened was I spent 85% of Saturday assembling my new toolbox from harbor freight and letting my OCD take over and fill it neatly and organize the garage a bit more around the box and my fixture table. During the remaining time of the weekend, I verified the timing for the ECU, messed with the tune a bit, and then lowered the rear of the car quite a bit. The ECU had the tooth #1 degree angle at 97* and it needed to be at 84*. With that figured out, I set the fuel table roughly and let Autotune do its thing cruising around the neighborhood (disturbing the peace). Driveability was great, nothing that bothered me any, but I didn't do anything too crazy. The car does want to idle super high, (1400 rpm) I tried to drop the timing advance a bit but it didn't change anything. (I'll attach the tables in the following post so smart people can make recommendations)

I gave up after a while and let the neighbors have a peaceful Sunday afternoon and started tearing into the front end a bit. Since the engine bay is super cluttered and dirty right now, I removed the A/C condenser and all the hardlines in the engine bay. And since the only Factory lighting I'll be using up front is the turn signals, I've got to find a way to cleanly tuck away or get rid of the mess of a chassis harness we were graced with in regards to everything up front. I'm assuming the previous owners had more to do with the mess than BMW did with the amount of petrified electrical tape that has turned from slimy to crusty and brittle. Not going to lie though... this is going to put me in a position to buy the shaved bay plates to weld in... The snowball effect is about to take place...

Not as exciting of a weekend as I was hoping for it to be, but progress is progress. I was itching to use the Steel-it spray paint and the spot weld bits I bought, but I'll just save it for next time!

[meltingmanmedia]

Tables from what is currently flashed to the ECU. Any helpful tips or suggestions would be appreciated! (Spark advance was adjusted like this to try to sort idle mentioned above)

Stock M20b25 (aside from head studs, irrelevant I know)
Long tube headers, 3" exhaust
crappy temporary intake setup

[Panici]

Are you using batch fuel injection? If so you might find a richer idle in the high 13s or low 14s will have the car running better.
There is also no reason to be so lean in the lower part of the table, unless you're super concerned for fuel economy. You'll get better drivability if you give it some more fuel.
Save leaner 14.7 and above for cruise/highway areas.

That timing row of 500rpm should be higher then the next one over. If the idle drops below normal it'll pick up some timing (and power) and help it to recover.

You'll want to "re bin" your tables so that the rows and columns match between the tables. That icon in the corner with the arrows will help you do this. This will be more of a manual operation on your VE table as you have more resolution (more cells available). You can click on the row/column heading numbers to change them manually. Just make sure it's got the same ones as the other tables and then add in extras in between for the areas where you'll spend a lot of time driving.

Edit:
Also looks like way too much timing basically anywhere above 30 degrees, but I have never tuned an M20 personally.
No knock sensors or detection I'm assuming with this ECU, so you want to err on the safe side.

In general, you'll want to smooth out the transitions between cells, if you click that 3D View button it'll better illustrate the abrupt number changes you have (especially in that ignition table)

[Digitalwave]

Glad you verified the timing, since you were off by 13*. Mine is closer to 84* as well. I don't know why some of the base maps were 97* -- I've never heard of that being correct.

That's probably too much timing on the top end. Closer to 30, give or take, is more realistic.

The biggest thing that is going to control your idle speed is how open the ICV is.

[alpinaseeone]

Very sweet build, love the custom looks and super wide stance. Don't think I've seen an E30 this pink before but I'm definitely not opposed to the look!

Following :)

[meltingmanmedia]

a little late to my weekly update, but here we go:

After my last little tuning adventure, I moved on to being bugged by the aesthetics of the car, and the fact that i need to do stuff that would be easier with the engine and trans out. And what makes that process even easier? Removing the core support. And boy does that SUCK. I used spot weld drill bits and an angle grinder and the vague memory of the process from a YouTube video I watched a month ago... Nonetheless, It eventually cooperated and came out. Its now getting sandblasted, and next will be welding on the plates to bolt it in and paint. While I had easy access, I ditched all the AC components as well and made the engine bay look way cleaner. Now i just need to pick up a hoist and pull the engine and trans out to go through once more and throw on some turbo goodies.

I quit my job of almost 5 years as a Marketing Director/content creation for a Euro Performance part website yesterday to work for a big-name intercooler manufacturer near my hometown. So there might be a small slowdown in updates over the next couple weeks potentially, but hopefully not! Once I'm moved back fully ill be able to work on the car every night so the process and quality should speed up a bit. But that could also set me up to rip this wrap off and paint the car... decisions decisions...

[hasa]

35 degrees advance in full load is probably too much. I'd start with no more than 28.

[Panici]

Making big moves with the job change!
Best of luck with the new path, and hopefully it will give you more wrench time on the E30.